Mediating Coalition Politics at the Local Government Level in South Africa, 2016-2019

The aim of this paper is to problematize the weaknesses of coalition politics by offering a conflict management mechanism at local government level in South Africa, covering the period of 2016 to 2019. This paper is embedded within the theoretical framework of consociationalism. There is a knowledge gap with regard to the conception of power-sharing at local government level in South Africa; because of a missing link between the notion of coalition and the implementation of provisions of political settlements. We argue that learning some of the skills of conflict management; including negotiation and mediation skills; may not only serve to improve the quality of our coalition politics, but may also have the additional result of significantly improving social cohesion more generally. Most importantly, the central thesis of this paper is that conflict management techniques are key to the power-sharing model; and should include collaborating, compromising, open and frank communication, avoiding attacks by promoting diplomacy in order to make a stable and successful coalition government.